Here then we have a clear instance of misunderstanding (not noted by the Evangelists) arising in very early if not in the very earliest times from the metaphorical language of Jesus. One more instance of probable misunderstanding must suffice for the present. You know how often in the Epistles of St. Paul the word “dead” is used to indicate spiritually “dead” _i.e._ “dead in sin.” A similar use is attributed to Christ in the Fourth Gospel: “He that believeth in me, though he were _dead_, yet shall he live” (John xi. 25); but here the impending resurrection of Lazarus gives the reader the impression that it is literally used. However it is almost certainly metaphorical in John v. 24, 25, 28, “He that heareth my word and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not unto judgment, but _is passed from death into life_. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour cometh and now is, when the _dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live_.... Marvel not at this, for the hour cometh in which all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth” &c. Here apparently the meaning is that the hour has already come (“now is”) when the spiritually dead shall hear the voice, and the hour is on the point of coming when the literally dead (“all that are in the tombs”) shall hear it. In any case, the metaphorical meaning is indisputable in the striking saying of Jesus (Luke ix. 60) “Let the _dead_ bury their dead.” Now if Jesus was in the habit of describing those who were lost in sin as being “dead,” and of bidding His disciples “raise the dead”—meaning that they were to restore sinners to spiritual life—we can easily see how such language might be misunderstood. It is probable that Jesus Himself had actually restored life to at least one person given over for dead, the daughter of Jairus, though by natural means. Of such revivification you may find an instance described in _Onesimus_ (pp. 77-81) which is taken almost verbatim from the account of his own revivification given by the late Archbishop of Bordeaux to the late Dean Stanley, and sent me by the Dean as being taken down from the Archbishop’s lips. If that was so, how natural for some of the Disciples to attach a literal meaning to the precept, “raise the dead”! They would argue thus, “Our Master healed diseases at a word, so can we; He once raised a child from the dead and bade us also raise the dead; some of the Disciples therefore ought to be able to do this.” How natural, under the circumstances, such a confusion of the material and the spiritual! Yet I have little doubt that the diseases which were cured by the Twelve were almost always “possession,” or paralysis, or nervous diseases. Compare the different accounts given by the Synoptists of the instructions of Jesus to the Twelve when He sent them forth on their first mission: [Transcriber’s Note: The following three quotations were originally printed side-by-side.] Mark vi. 7.